How do I turn on Edge’s new ‘do not sell my data’ signal — and what does it actually do?

Microsoft Edge is rolling out a built-in Global Privacy Control setting in the US that tells every site you visit not to sell or share your personal data for targeted advertising. Firefox and Brave already ship it on by default. Here is where the switch lives, what the signal can and cannot do, and why Chrome users should not go hunting for it yet.

You click through a shopping site for two minutes and spend the next week seeing ads for the exact shoes you looked at.Short answer: Microsoft Edge is rolling out a built-in Global Privacy Control (GPC) setting in the US that sends every site you visit a simple signal: do not sell or share my personal data for targeted advertising. Firefox and Brave already ship GPC on by default; Edge users previously needed an extension.Why it matters: GPC began in October 2020 as a W3C-backed standard built for exactly this problem. It lets people enforce privacy choices under laws like CCPA and GDPR automatically, with one browser setting instead of a fresh hunt on every site.

Without it, your only option is finding each site’s own ‘do not sell’ link — if it has one at all.Turn it on, step by step:1. Open Edge and go to Settings.2. Open ‘Privacy, search, and services,’ then find the Privacy section and ‘Global Privacy Control.’3.

Turn it on — Edge then sends the signal to all sites you visit.4. If you use Chrome, do not go hunting for this switch in regular Chrome yet: Google is only testing a built-in version in Chrome Canary, and Chrome stable does not have it.5. Whatever browser you use, keep your normal protections on too — clear cookies you do not want and review site permissions.Pro tip: Turning GPC on does not guarantee a site will obey it — Microsoft itself notes sites may or may not honor the signal — so treat it as one strong, free layer, not an invisibility cloak.Ad’s take: I like anything that lets you say ‘no thanks’ once instead of on five hundred pop-up boxes.

Flip it on, keep your expectations honest, and you have still made tracking a little harder for free.